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Everyone seems to be clamoring for the United States to "do
something" about the carnage in the Middle East. Demands for action are
ringing out from the pacifists on the left to the "national greatness" crowd
among the neo-conservatives on the right.

Whether in domestic policy or foreign policy, few things have
led to so many disasters as the notion that we have to "do something." No
nation and no individual can simply do "something." Whatever action you take
has to be specific -- and what matters are precisely those specifics and
their specific consequences.

The fact that American intervention has always hovered in the
background of the relations between Israel and the enemies by which it is
surrounded has itself made aggression against Israel safer than it would
have been otherwise. In the absence of the prospect of outside intervention,
anyone contemplating unleashing a wave of suicide bombings against Israeli
civilians would have to think twice if that meant facing the unbridled fury
of the Israeli military, unlimited in time or scope by outside pressures.

Pacifist movements, "world opinion" and the prospect of
intervention by either the U.S. or the U.N are an aggressor's ace in the
hole. The force needed to deter aggression is often more than squeamish
people can stand watching on their TV every day. When contemplating
terrorist attacks, Arafat and the Palestinians know that it's usually a case
of heads I win and tails I get saved by "world opinion."

What does winning mean in this context? It means gaining a
series of piecemeal concessions from launching successive attacks on the
Israeli population, without ever having to grant peace and normal relations.
It means destroying Israel on the instalment plan. If all it takes is
talking peace in English and urging war in Arabic, why not?

While we fight the war against terrorism all out, the way we
fought World War II, we seem to be insisting that Israel fight its war
against terrorism the way we fought Vietnam -- restricted by political
considerations and pulling our punches to appease those who indulge
themselves in kibitzing from the sidelines about life and death issues that
they have never bothered to study seriously.

People safely nestled in the Berkeley Hills or Parisian cafes
can engage in moral preening about Middle Eastern problems, without having
to worry about the consequences. For such people, pious phrases like "the
peace process" or "trading land for peace" have great appeal. Too often,
foreign policies have been made in response to such uninformed pieties that
disregard brutal realities.

Worse yet, foreign policy has too often in the past been
dominated by a need for White House photo ops showing Israeli and
Palestinian leaders shaking hands while the American president of the moment
looked on, beaming. The latest round of suicide bombings of Israeli men,
women and children are a tragic aftermath of the illusions behind the photo
ops and the notion that Israel can exchange "land for peace."

Land for peace has in practice meant land for promises. Perhaps
Israel should have responded to this misleading phrase by saying: "You want
land for peace? We agree! Give us six months of peace and we will turn over
so many acres of land. Make that a whole year of peace and we will turn over
so many square miles of land. And if you can behave like decent human beings
for five consecutive years, we will give you enough land to have your own
country.

"However, if you start raising hell after that, we will send in
our troops and tanks, to take back the land you got under false pretenses."

Instead, the deal was that Israel would make the first
concession by giving permanent land for promises of peace. Whatever
proposals come out of current attempts at negotiating a Middle East
settlement will undoubtedly expect Israel to first make concessions in hopes
of later gaining the peace and security that it has been vainly seeking for
more than half a
century.